A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE STONE QUARRIES AT David Workman

The builders of the Roman villa at Combe Down would, it large quantities used on the Down, including the stone for may be assumed, have used a local source of stone. Allen’s showpiece home . Perhaps also, stone was supplied from there for the new baths at the hot springs in the valley below. This however The mines extended under virtually the whole of the is supposition. Similarly, there is no actual knowledge of central part of Combe Down, from Combe Road in the any quarrying at Combe Down in the Middle Ages. west to Oxford Place in the east, and from Bradford Road in the north to Church Road in the south. Around the edges The 16th Century antiquarian and traveller John Leland of this area, especially to the west and south, surface wrote that he approached Bath from ‘by mountain workings provided faces into which tunnels could be and quarre’. This seems to be a reference to quarrying in driven to access the mined area. Horsecombe Vale, between Midford and Combe Down. Stone was supplied to Longleat House from ‘Horsecomb died in 1764 leaving large debts. Very soon, Hed’ in 1568. John Wood stated that in his day the ‘quarre’ much of his equipment including the cranes was sold, and Leland referred to bore the name Horse Combe Quarry. He the railway to Widcombe was lifted. In 1765 the diggings described it as ‘the most westward and oldest of all the were leased to various tenants. In 1788, Allen’s estate penetrations ...into the bowels of the hill in search of Free including the quarries passed to Earl De Montalt, widower Stone’. There is documentary evidence of mining of stone of Allen’s niece and last surviving legatee, Mary Allen. at Bath by 1663. A Danish visitor in that year, Oluf The estate rental book for the years 1795-99 names 15 Baruch, wrote of ‘a cave ... on a nearby hill hollowed out quarry tenants, between them working 14 quarries by those who live there for stone for buildings’. This could (unnamed except by tenant). There is known to have been have been at Combe Down. But pre-1700, the picture is active surface quarrying at this time but specific locations hazy. remain unknown. Underground working may have been sharply reduced. By the 1720s, quarrying was established in the area of the present Combe Down village. Seven people are known to When Earl De Montalt (by now Viscount Hawarden) died have had quarries there in 1727, some of them masons or in 1803 his estate was divided up and sold. The sale builders. One was the prominent local architect-builder included the underlying beds of stone and split up the Thomas Greenway. ownership of the main underground workings. The quarrying rights transferred with the sales still had 26 years Ralph Allen had arrived in Bath in 1710. He began buying to run. When they finally expired in 1829, several new land on Combe Down in 1726 and by 1731 owned almost owners appeared on the scene. But before long, a gradual all of it. In 1729 he acquired quarrying rights for 100 decline set in. There were a number of reasons for this, years. His estate at Combe Down extended from Prior Park among them urban encroachment, limited reserves after westwards as far as Bloomfield Road, and took in the 120 years of intensive working and competition from the whole of the north side of Horsecombe Vale. huge workings opened up in the Corsham area after the opening of the Great Western Railway in 1841. The main features of Allen’s quarrying operation were its Underground working at the mines opened by Ralph Allen sheer scale, development of extensive underground had practically ceased by about 1860. In 1887 a new workings and use of innovative methods for lifting and company was set up to rationalise production and transporting the stone. There were horse-operated cranes at marketing of . Seven established local firms the mine heads to lift the stone on to wagons which were were acquired, several of them owning Combe Down hauled on rails down the hill to a stone yard and wharf at properties. Some other operators continued independently. Dolemead (Widcombe). There, another crane was used to But by 1900 sales of Bath Stone were falling away, and by load the stone on to barges. The cranes and the railway the beginning of the first World War most of the quarries were designed by John Padmore. at Combe Down had closed down for good. There is today just one remaining stone working on the Down. I have not come across any figures for the quantities of stone extracted at Combe Down in those days. According In the following brief descriptions of the principal quarries to Ralph Allen’s clerk of works Richard Jones, the annual and quarried areas of Combe Down, I have taken Entry amount of stone ‘sent away’ (by barge) from the Dolemead Hill-Southstoke Road as the boundary with Odd Down to wharf was 1,800 tons. But when exactly? Was this a the west, and Ralph Allen Drive-North Road-Shaft Road as typical figure? In any case, the amount sent to the building that with to the east. I have divided the sites across the river in Bath itself must have been much Combe Down workings into the following sectors: Entry greater, but can only be guessed at. Then there were the Hill, Fox Hill-Ralph Allen Drive, Combe Down Village

12 Journal of the Bath Geological Society, No. 23, 2004 (including Summer Lane), and Shaft Road. Numbers refer Fox Hill to Ralph Allen Drive to the map. For the larger operations and generalised areas There was a small quarry west of Fox Hill where it starts of quarrying, as described, the numbers are sited more or its descent to Perrymead (5). This had closed by 1900. At less in the centre of each one. The names I use are from the the Bradford Road end of the MoD compound there was a cited articles by Addison and Wooster. Each of these small vertical shaft underground quarry 1909-1924 (6). articles also gives grid references for the quarries, and There were surface quarries to the east, as far as more detailed information in some cases. Stonehouse Close, between the mid-19th Century and c.1914 (7). To the north, between the Combe Down RFC Entry Hill field and Stonehouse Lane, was a long linear quarry which A good place to start is the quarry with the best accessible was worked until the 1930s (8). exposures of the Combe Down Oolite. This is known as Springfield, and is now a landscaped area enclosed on The area between Trinity Road and Ralph Allen Drive, three sides by the quarry walls (1). Access is from Entry encompassing Pope’s Walk and Priory Close, was Hill Park, off Entry Hill. This was the largest open quarry extensively quarried between 1800 and 1914 (9). The very in Bath. Over its lifetime it yielded c.2·5 million cubic feet last working was c.1925. At one time there were (160,000 tons) of stone. Most of the activity was underground workings to the south linking up with Firs c.1750-c.1900. It is a RIGS and provides exposures all mine. There is now no trace of any of the quarries between around its 8-10m high walls. Wear a hat! There is a Fox Hill and Ralph Allen Drive, except perhaps some of blocked-up mine entrance on the eastern side, apparently the minor surface undulations one sees in the area. heading in a direction just south of an adjacent quarry. This Everything has been filled and built over. More detail on latter, quite deep, was open to Entry Hill itself. It is now individual workings in all this area between Fox Hill and occupied by a house and garden. Part of the quarry face Ralph Allen Drive can be found in Peter Allison’s very still exists and is visible from the road (2). informative book Around Combe Down.

On the west side of Entry Hill, just above the entrance to the golf course, was another large quarry (3), virtually Combe Down village abandoned by 1839. There was a brief resumption of This was the main area of quarrying in the 18th Century. working on a small scale in the 1940s. The site is now a Starting from the west, there were several surface council storage depot. A small remnant of the quarry wall workings in the area between Horsecombe Grove and can still be seen from the roadside. Combe Road. The largest quarry here was Coxe’s (aka Cox’s or Collibee’s) (10). Part of it can be very clearly On either side of Entry Hill where it meets Bradford Road seen in the form of a large irregular depression occupied were quarries known as Crossways (4). These were by some house, gardens and a factory, behind the buildings working in 1839. They were closed in 1904 and on the west side of Combe Road. There was tunnel access completely backfilled. The western one is said to have to underground workings east of Combe Road and Rock been used to dump rubble from the 1942 air raids. There is Hall Lane, which later acquired the name Byfield mine a playing field there now. On the eastern one stands the (see below). At least one entrance is still visible. of St Peter & St Paul.

Journal of the Bath Geological Society, No. 23, 2004 13 To the east of Combe Road, first the surface workings. In Avenue is made complicated by later working and re- the centre there is Davidge’s Bottom at the head of Rock working. The area around Oxford Place (17) was quarried Lane (not to be confused with Rock Hall Lane). This is underground pre-1809 with an entrance from near Church occupied by housing but is very obviously an old quarry, Road to the south. This operation may have ended in 1838. partly backfilled (11). The quarry wall on the north and A secondary phase of quarrying in the area, casual and east sides can still be seen. There was an entrances to Firs intermittent, ceased in the 1890s. Mine here. The very last working in this area was in the 1930s. There were two other small quarries nearby, now In the area south of Summer Lane there were two quarries built over. at the eastern end of Beechwood Road (18). These were known as Beechwood and Vinegar Down. There is no trace North of Church Road, opposite the church and of these now. The former may have been working in the extending some way to the east, were the De Montalt and period 1850-1880. The latter was certainly worked in the Hopecote quarries (12 and 13), probably not worked since mid-19th Century and closed in 1913. around 1830. There were more entrances to Firs Mine from here. The north wall of the De Montalt Quarry is still Further east, between Summer Lane and Belmont Road, at exposed behind De Montalt Place and can be seen at the the site of the Roman villa, there was a quarry known as far end of the lane beside Claremont House. Cruikshank’s (19) operating in the 1850s (the villa was discovered in 1860). Just beyond Kingham Farm (now Between Church Road and Summer Lane, west of the Kingham Cottage) on the north side of Summer Lane, was church, was Church Quarry (14), open to Summer Lane. A the short-lived quarry opened by William Smith in about quarry face still exists behind Quarry Vale Cottages. 1810 (20). This or a successor to it can still be seen in the Between here and Church Road was a stone yard and the wood by the road. There was also a mine known as end of one branch of Ralph Allen’s railway (another Jackdaw (Jackday) (21) whose entrance was 200m east of branch went to Davidge’s Bottom). There was yet another Kingham Farm. The portal (blocked up) is still there, close entrance to Firs Mine here. The site on which the church to the road just beyond and opposite Lake Cottage. It is was built in 1834 was covered in quarry waste. surprisingly large, the width being c.3m and exposed height c.1.5m. It has a well-preserved stone arch. It is The main working in Combe Down village was Ralph reported that stone from Jackdaw and Vinegar Down (18) Allen’s Firs Mine (15), so called because of the many fir was used to line some of the Combe Down railway tunnel, trees Allen had planted in this area. (As noted by Mike opened in 1874. Chapman, these were for landscaping but were also a means of making money: the new houses being built with Shaft Road his stone also required deal boards for their construction). Upper Lawn Quarry (22) is the one remaining working Firs Mine underlies Firs Field and areas to the west (to quarry on Combe Down. I understand it has reserves for a Westerleigh Road), south (to Church Road) and east (to good many more years (some decades) of production. It is Gladstone Road). There were entrances from near the located west of Shaft Road, off St Winifred’s Drive, and Hadley Arms at the top of The Avenue in the north and, as can be seen from the playing field between the latter and already noted, from quarries to the south. The mine the eastern end of Church Road. It is the latest site of an extended across an area of at least 25 acres (10 hectares). operation that began at North Road (where the Rockery There is a honeycomb of tunnels with headroom of from Tea Garden now is) in about 1850 and has progressively less than one to about three metres, and some caverns up to moved southward. The original quarry, partly backfilled, is about eight metres in height. still to be seen as a large depression (23) occupied by gardens. Later workings were entirely filled and built over Further to the west was another area of underground (end of St Winifred’s Drive) or levelled for playing fields. workings, already referred to, assimilated by Ralph Allen and extended under his ownership. This is now called the Upper Lawn Quarry has for a long time now been the sole Byfield Mine (16). It extends east of Combe Road between primary source of Combe Down Oolite, one of the most Bradford Road and Summer Lane, part of the way along durable of the Bath freestones. In recent times it has Westerleigh Road in the north and as far as Rock Lane in supplied stone for restoration work at , the south. It has underground links with Firs Mine and with Windsor Castle and Brighton Pavilion. Coxe’s Quarry (mine entrances from the west of Rock Hall Lane and from the lane itself). Neither Firs nor Byfield was A short distance southeast of Upper Lawn was the large systematically worked after Allen’s death but there was re- Mount Pleasant Quarry (24). The eastern part (east of the working of parts of the mines until about 1860, when they footpath shown on the map) probably closed pre-1914. It were essentially exhausted. A small part of Byfield Mine was completely backfilled in the 1980s to form playing was re-opened by means of a vertical shaft in 1905, for fields. There was some underground working here, and about five years. there is now a bat habitat. The western part of the quarry still exists, disused and closed off pending a decision on As noted, the Firs mine workings in the period to 1764 what to do with the site. This latter part was briefly worked extended to Gladstone Road, but the picture east of The between the wars and again in the 1980s.

14 Journal of the Bath Geological Society, No. 23, 2004 To the east of Shaft Road just beyond St Winifred’s Drive REFERENCES were the entrances to two underground workings close P.Addison, 1998. Around Combe Down. Millstream Books together (25). Shaft Mine was working in the 1850s and M.Chapman, 1996. A Guide to the Estates of Ralph Allen finally closed in the mid-1930s. There were horse-drawn around Bath. Bath Record Office tramways to the different faces. Grey Gables (aka St D.Pollard, 1992. Digging Bath Stone - an interim report. Winifred’s) Mine nearby closed in 1938. Subterranea Britannica, Bulletin 28, 24-39 P.Wooster, 1978. The stone industry at Bath. Journal of the The Future British Industrial Archaeological Society 11, 5-13 It seems unlikely that any more quarries will be opened or re-opened in the area. Thus Upper Lawn will probably Unpublished material on open file accessed at the Combe remain the only producer of freestone at Combe Down. Down Stone Mines Information Centre.

To eliminate the risk of subsidence in the area of old underground workings, a programme of stabilization is to be carried out. Due consideration is being given to environmental issues such as the impact on the hydrogeology of the wider area, conservation of the historical heritage and the importance of the mines as a bat habitat SSSI.

In brief, studies have established the following preferred stabilization options. Most of the mined space to be irrevocably filled, probably with foam concrete using Bath Geological Society limestone dust as a filler. In hydrogeologically sensitive areas areas, permeable limestone aggregate to be used instead of concrete. Some archaeologically significant THE ROCKS spaces to be filled with (removable) washed marine sand THE ROCKS and thereby remain accessible. These will also be lost for OFOF the present generation but could be re-opened in some BROWN‘S future age. Before filling, detailed records and 3D digital BROWN'S imagery models to be made of the typical archaeology of FOLLYFOLLY the mines. Some small areas to be retained as bat habitats. by Ron Smith There is a proposal, still to be worked out and presented in detail and not part of the stabilization scheme as such, for a public presentation/interpretation facility for history and archaeology. This would probably be off Rock Hall Lane. If this can be achieved with at least some rock exposure in an underground gallery, there will be one place where the geology of the mines will still be on view in situ. Otherwise there will be no exposed rock left in the stabilized mines except for any unlined parts of the bat habitats. A GEOLOGICAL GUIDE TO BROWN'S FOLLY NATURE RESERVE Preliminary and emergency work has been going on for some time, but final decisions on the details and funding of the main stabilization scheme are still awaited. This is the current (spring 2004) situation as I understand it. There is a Combe Down Stone Mines Information Centre in the The fourth edition of Ron‘s book has now village, which is open to the public several times a week been produced by the Wildlife Trust and where more detailed and continually up-dated and is on sale from information can be obtained. Bath Geological Society at £1·00

FOOTNOTE Concerning the sites numbered 20 and 21, there is evidence that William Smith worked the mine at site 21 (Jackdaw) for a time. Also his open quarry was probably on the hillside immediately above the entrance to this mine (there is still a quarry there, partly infilled), and not at site 20 nearer to Kingham Farm. (Information from Andrew Mathieson).

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